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This is the talk we wish we had seen before implementing a streaming open-world game from scratch. We present the data-packaging and -loading pipe used in Brutal Legend, with an emphasis on I/O throughput. One of its key features is the offline generation of two digraphs which represent asset-asset references, and asset-asset dependencies. These graphs allow the requirements for packing, loading, and unloading assets (dictated by programmers) to be highly decoupled from the gross structure of the data (dictated by designers and content creators).

The other key feature is a cross-platform I/O scheduler. We discuss its simple yet highly effective algorithms, and present tips and insights we believe were vital to its success.
We also show some neat pictures of graphs and dispel some myths about hard drives being better than optical discs.